A letter from Papaw — Saturday morning. Coffee's on.

Earl brought the saw back. Eighteen months. Set it on the porch step and said, "There. Don't say I never gave you nothing."

I didn't say a thing. Poured him a cup.

Went out to the back fence after he left. Kudzu's taken it again. I cut it back in April and you can't tell I was ever out there. The fence is somewhere under it, doing its job, I suppose.

Got me thinking about my mother. She used to sing a hymn in the kitchen — I can't name it now, but I could whistle it. She had a face that turned heads in a room, and she didn't seem to know it, and by the time I was grown it was a face that had worked. That was the better one.

Brother Wallace preached forty years that vanity was a thief. I sat through every one of them. Said grace at my own table this morning, nobody watching, and meant it the way you mean a thing when there's nobody to perform it for.

Here's what I'll say plain. That saw sat in Earl's shed eighteen months and came back dull and a little rusted and it'll still cut a board. The kudzu doesn't care what the fence used to look like. The fence doesn't either. The things that hold up are the ones that quit minding how they look a long time ago.

Going to sharpen the saw.

Love,